It is known for being the most important computer in the creation of hacker culture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bolt, Beranek and Newman, and elsewhere.

[7] After showing a prototype at the Eastern Joint Computer Conference in December 1959, DEC delivered the first PDP-1 to Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) in November 1960,[8][9] and it was formally accepted in early 1961.

[10] In September 1961, DEC donated the PDP-1 to MIT,[11] where it was placed in the room next to its ancestor, the TX-0 computer,[12] which was by then on indefinite loan from Lincoln Laboratory.

In this setting, the PDP-1 quickly replaced the TX-0 as the favorite machine among the budding hacker culture, and served as the platform for a long list of computing innovations.

[16] BBN's system was quickly followed by orders from Lawrence Livermore and Atomic Energy of Canada (AECL), and eventually 53 PDP-1s were delivered until production ended in 1969.

PDP-1 #44 was found in a barn in Wichita, Kansas in 1988, apparently formerly owned by one of the many aviation companies in the area, and rescued for the Digital Historical Collection, also eventually ending up at the CHM.

[16] Unlike punched card decks, which could be sorted and re-ordered, paper tape is tedious to physically edit.

Because it is equipped with online and offline printers that were based on IBM electric typewriter mechanisms, it is capable of what, in 1980s terminology, would be called "letter-quality printing" and therefore inspired TJ-2, arguably the first word processor.

It is an adapted IBM Model B Electric typewriter mechanism, modified by the addition of switches to detect key presses, and solenoids to activate the typebars.

[24][25][26] Offline devices are typically Friden Flexowriters that have been specially built to operate with the FIO-DEC character coding used by the PDP-1.

In later years, DECtape drives were added to some PDP-1 systems, as a more convenient method of backing up programs and data, and to enable early time-sharing.

Early hard disks were expensive and notoriously unreliable; if available and working, they are used primarily for speed of swapping, and not for permanent file storage.

Several hours of music were prepared for it, including Bach fugues, all of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik, the Ode to Joy movement concluding Beethoven's Symphony No.